


The Marred Shadow of Your Gift

by racketghost



Series: Strange Moons [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Hand Jobs, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Medical Procedures, Ouija, Praise Kink, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Strength Kink, Strong Aziraphale (Good Omens), World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-24 06:29:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20701472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/racketghost/pseuds/racketghost
Summary: “Almost there,” Aziraphale says, walking along the loose sand as if it isn’t an amorphous shifting landscape, as if Crowley is the lightest burden he has ever carried, “you doing ok?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a line in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by TE Lawrence
> 
> (Which, btw, watch Lawrence of Arabia and try not to see the Aziraphale parallels, I dare you.)

The Arab Revolt, outside the city of Al Wajh, 1917

When the charges go off, he feels more than sees the blast.

The sand quivers beneath him, turning a mostly solid surface into a trembling freeform carpet, living lava that quakes until the ground is merely a suggestion of solid mass. There is the thousand-man din of war-cries and bullet-fire, the groaning of an engine in its death-throes.

The men beside him are firing rapidly over the dune, showering the twisted metal mass in a hail of gunfire. Even here, even in the midst of a firefight the men beside him on their bellies give him a wide-berth, eyeing him skeptically, filled with the strange internal knowledge that something about him isn’t quite right.

_ Someday you’ll thank me, _Crowley hopes, knowing it won’t come true, propped up on his elbows. The weight of the gun in his hand is oily and heavy and very, _very_ real, grounding him in reality for all this feels like a dream.

_Nothing can hurt me here,_ he thinks, belief shielding him like an umbrella, bullets whizzing overhead,_ I am made of sky and stardust, fire and glass._

He scans down the sight of his gun, not firing, _no need,_ as the men in the train get picked off one by one.

A flare bursts overhead, showering vermillion light over the dimming sky and in the next breath the men beside him are rising up and over the dune. A cavalcade of horses follow them, white half-moons in their rolling mad eyes, hooves kicking up tiny cyclones of sand. They veer sharply around him even in their frenzied state— high on adrenaline and fear they see him now as he really is: serpent, snake, _demon_.

_When will this be over? How much longer? It’s been three years and it feels like three centuries and I just want to _sleep_._

Crowley follows the charge despite himself, sliding down the dune, scanning the flat plane beneath him. The men around him are firing as they run, breezy robes billowing around them like smoke. Down in the beating heart of combat something— _someone_— golden haired and swathed in white catches his eye.

His heart stops in his chest— _angel?_— belief suspended somewhere above his body for an entire beating second. _What are you—_

A bullet is fired from somewhere below him, somewhere in that smoldering wreck of what used to be a train— and he swears he can feel it leave the gun, knows its destiny before it lands. It finds a mark somewhere in Crowley’s hip, the suddenness of it such a shock that he lays down in the sand, legs collapsing underneath him like a new-born foal.

_“Fuck_,” he swears, _I’m ok I’m ok I’m ok._

If it hurts he barely feels it, knows only the lightning edge of adrenaline licking down his veins, of the color of horse-blood on sand, the voices of men killing and being killed. He raises his gun to his shoulder, sinking in the sand beneath him, and stares down the sight of it until he finds the tall white cloud of a man. _Oh, it’s not you_. Crowley watches the man in white for a moment, sees the blond hair and tanned skin, a spark of recognition lighting in his brain.

_Get your shit together, Crowley,_ he thinks, _he wouldn’t be here. He’s in France or back in London. _He scans the rest of the train regardless, rattled, an eye on the pale stranger below.

The sound of battle below him eventually quiets into the victory yawp of frenzied men, a final few pops of gunfire as the last survivors of the train are dispatched.

The charges were a success. The rebel forces had laid their dynamite on the tracks but only someone with detailed knowledge of the train schematics would have taken out the bulk of the armed men aboard. 

_They never would’ve survived. I better get a commendation for this._

He drops his shoulders, releases his gun, relieved, demonic duty complete. _Always aiding the rebels. _He thinks of early Saxons squaring off against Charlemagne, of peasants in Flanders, of Jacobites. Crowley tilts his head back, stares up at the vast expanse of cloudless sky, and _breathes_.

_I am so fucking tired._

The world here is stretched at its edges, an impossible aspect ratio of golden desert sand and clear blue sky stretching in every direction. He thinks of his last meeting with Hastur in a derelict alleyway: thinks of the odd, lingering look he gave him along with his orders. _Are they on to us? No, can’t be. I haven’t seen you in months. We’ve been so careful—_

“You know, the trick is not minding that it hurts.”

Crowley opens his eyes, sees a tan weathered hand reaching down to him. The golden head is haloed by the sun, low in the sky, the man’s outline backlit and glowing. _It’s not you_, he reminds himself.

“I’ll try to remember that,” he says, taking the proffered hand, rising unsteadily to his feet.

“You are the man they call Crowley, are you not?”

“I am,” Crowley says, squinting up at the man. _How could I have mistaken him for you? He’s much too tall. _

“Prince Faisal told me about you. Said you were the one to supply the charges,” he pauses, “I suspect that train would’ve blown up even without our help.”

Crowley shrugs a shoulder— it was becoming increasingly difficult to remain standing, a sharp pain radiating out from his left hip.

“It may have,” he says.

White teeth flash at him in a broad, easy smile.

“I thank you, for everything you gave us today,” the man gestures behind him, to the smoldering metal skeleton, and Crowley knows he means it sincerely, can tell by the unwavering blue of his eyes.

“It doesn’t seem like much,” Crowley says, looking down at his own blood on the sand.

“Quite the contrary,” the man replies, smiling at the black smoke rising up into the sky, “that’s the color of freedom.”

_Is it, though?_ Crowley wonders, watching the man leave, his raven-feathers rustling in the firmament.

* * *

_ I can do this. I can do this. You are an occult being filled with immense power and cosmic energy and _you can do this_._

It isn’t working. For all his pep-talk feels good it is doing very little to actually succeed in making him transport. He has been lying in this blasted desert for what feels like a year, the moon practically overhead, the distant light of a nomadic tribe and their late-night bonfires glowing along the horizon. 

“Come the fuck on, Crowley,” he mutters, trying to find his feet again, using his gun as a support. “Get up, you piece of shit.”

_At the very least there is a copse of trees and some rocks over there. Maybe I could just hide there for a while. Wait until morning_.

He squints at the shadow of trees, “eh, can’t be more than few hundred meters, can it?” He closes his eyes and imagines being there, willing the world around him to blip away and he’d be in that oasis, under the dark canopy of palms—

But the pain radiating down his leg is dividing his concentration, cutting him in two. Blood is sticky between his thighs. He opens his eyes, in the same place, and lets loose a great frustrated shout.

_“_This is so _fucking frustrating._”

_I’m so tired. Maybe I can just lay here and sleep for a little while. Regain some strength. That could work._

His eyes are already half closed with the thought. _You’re such a good demon,_ he smiles stupidly at himself, throwing the gun down next to him and giving into the tired languor of his muscles,_ you even tempt yourself._

He laughs, punch-drunk on exhaustion, easing down onto his back until he is staring up into the brilliant velvet carpet of sky.  
_Lets see who we have with us tonight._

“Oh hi,” he breathes, lifting a finger to trace the outline of stars. “Hydra… Libra. You’re a Libra, you know,” he says to the earth, smiling and patting the sand underneath of him. “Scorpius… Ophiuchus. I made you.” A man cradling a snake._ The serpent-bearer_. He lets his hand fall to the sand, a dead weight, the smile erasing from his lips.

_But who will ever bear me?_

He closes his eyes, remembering what it felt like to weave the carbon, magnesium, calcium under his fingers, birthing the stars one-by-one until he had a tapestry of glowing infants, all of them his children.

_That was a long time ago. Now look at you. Fighting in human battles and getting human wounds and laying in the middle of a desert because you’re too incapable of getting yourself back to fucking—_

He stops, opens his eyes.

“To fucking _where_?” He says to the empty sky. “_Home_?”

_You don’t have a home. You’re a mindless, gutless vagrant wandering the earth like a hobo. The closest thing you have to home is the skin on your back, and even that is an endlessly changing bit of _nothing_. You might have had a home once but you traded it for being cool and not shutting your fucking mouth._

He presses his palms into his face, fingers weaving through his cropped hair.

_London’s a home, I guess._

He pulls the hair between his fingers until it hurts.

_But it’s only a home because _he’s_ there. If he didn’t pick London for his bookshop I never would’ve stayed there. Too many people. Too much smog. I could move out into the country someday, find a little spot on the coast. Make an actual home. Have a garden. I like plants._

“Maybe he could come too,” he says quietly to the constellations up above. He closes his eyes and dreams of what life might be like there, this imagined place. Would they occupy the same space? The thought fills him with a deep warmth, a small fire starting in his belly.

_Live together? What would you be like? Would my clothes start to smell like you? Would you be ok with me sleeping all the time? I wonder if you shower like a human. Or do you just snap your fingers clean? I hope you bathe like they do. I hope you take bubble baths that drain our house of hot water for a week. I hope you eat all the food in the pantry and never think of restocking the shelves. I hope you fill our house with books and tiny angel trinkets and I hope they drive me crazy. _He opens his eyes again and stares at Ophiochus holding the serpent.

_ I hope I get to be annoyed by you someday._

_ “_What a privilege that would be,” he says.

“Who are you talking to?”

Crowley nearly leaps out of his skin, jerking upright and swiveling around until he sees, behind him, Aziraphale. Aziraphale in his medic uniform pressed to an impossibly crisp white, bag slung over his shoulder, hands clasped in front of him.

He abruptly feels the entire contents of his circulatory system rush to his face.

“Angel. What’re you—”

“—I know, I know. I shouldn’t have just showed up like this but I hadn’t heard from you in a while and I know this whole revolt thing was getting out of hand so I just—,” the angel pauses, eyes scanning him up and down, “are you ok?”

“I’m—“ _Well this is embarrassing_, “I’m fine. I’m just… laying here. In the desert. Having a sit.”

Aziraphale blinks at him, “what happened to you?”

Crowley rolls his eyes and lays back down, covering his face with his hands.

“Igotshot.”

“You _what?”_

He pulls his hands down from his face and stares straight forward, sighing loudly.

“I got _shot_.”

“Oh good _Lord_,” Aziraphale is beside him in a moment, kneeling down next to him in the cool sand. “Where?”

“Somewhere…” Crowley gestures vaguely to his left hipbone, his face burning.

“Okay, well is there a bullet in there?”

“I assume as much. But I’m not really one for knowing these things.”

Aziraphale releases a long-suffering sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Can you…you know, _demon_ it out?”

Crowley blinks at him, then realizes that Aziraphale can’t see his blank expression behind his dark glasses.

“Angel… Demons don’t go around doing a whole lot of healing work,” he wiggles his fingers in the air in an approximation of what _healing_ might look like, “I think that’s more in _your_ wheelhouse.”

“Yes and—“ Aziraphale flexes his hands in his lap.

“Nuh-uh. We are not having that conversation again.”

“We could _try_—“

“Angel, _no_.”

Aziraphale huffs and sucks his teeth and looks remarkably like he’s pouting. 

_ “_Okay, well I can patch you up but first I suppose we should get out of here,” Aziraphale says, looking around. “I don’t quite like being out in the open like this.”

Crowley licks his lips, “yeah, not really the best spot for a sit. Middle of a rebellion and all.”

“There are some trees up ahead. Could be a good spot to hide out for a bit. Can you walk?”

“Sure,” Crowley lies, digging the butt of his gun into the sand, “absolutely—“ He pulls one leg up and tries to stand— “not. Yeah. Never mind.” He says, sinking back down.

“Here, let me,” Aziraphale stoops next to him, their cheeks nearly touching, and hefts Crowley’s arm over his shoulders. “Ready?”

Crowley turns and can see the white gold of his eyelashes glowing silver in the moonlight.

“Yeah,” he breathes, as they lift up into a stand.

Aziraphale is a good bit shorter than him, his shoulders a soft warm platform for his arm. He hasn’t been this close to him a long, _long_ time— _have we ever been this close?— _and Crowley has to remind himself to breathe.

“Okay, let’s walk. Don’t put weight on it—“

“_Fuck_.”

“—What did I _just_ say?”

“Well how the bloody hell am I supposed to not put weight on it when we are practically sinking?”

“You know what?” Aziraphale says to himself, and then looks around the empty desert. He shakes his head. “This is ridiculous.” And then in an easy show of strength and grace that he didn’t realize Aziraphale had, hefts Crowley in his arms as if he is nothing more than a stack of books.

“Angel. Angel, angel, _angel _oh my _god_ what are you _doing_.”

Crowley is a writhing mess in his arms.

“Will you _stop_ _moving_, you _blessed_ snake.”

He goes limp in Aziraphale’s arms at the admonishment, head cradled up by his shoulder, long legs dangling over the crook of his arm.

_ How are you so fucking strong? You look like a confection. Like a marshmallow or a meringue with your white hair and your white skin and soft shoulders. How are you such a question to me even now after thousands of—_

_ “_Thank you,” Aziraphale says, rolling his shoulders a bit, “much better.”

Crowley doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands, the one cradled in his lap and the other slung over Aziraphale’s shoulder. He can feel the downy softness of the hair on the back of the angel’s neck tickling his hand. _Do not touch, do not touch, for the love of Satan do not fucking touch._

Aziraphale, to his credit, walks for all the world as if he isn’t cradling a demon in his arms or walking across the shifting blue sands of a desert at night. Crowley can hear the steady thrumming of the angel’s heart, so close to his ear.

“Am I heavy?” He asks quietly, trying very hard not to stare at the angel’s profile.

Aziraphale glances down at him, their noses nearly touching, the corner of his mouth turning up in a smile.

“Light as a feather.”

“Oh,” he says, his cheeks hot. “You’re…” he fumbles on his words for a moment, his tongue forking a bit under the immense strangeness of feeling both vulnerable and safe, small and heavy. He can feel the angel’s heart beating next to his ribs, his own heart calling back in conversation. “Really strong,” he finishes lamely.

Aziraphale gives a breathy laugh. “How swiftly you forget that I _was_ the guardian of the eastern gate. God wouldn’t give that job to a lightweight.”

_Why didn’t you smite me then? _Crowley wonders, not for the first time.

“I’ll never forget that,” he says in response. “How could I forget our first meeting?” _An angel giving away God’s flaming sword to the first humans. An angel talking to a demon, to _the_ demon who gave away the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil that started this whole human mess. How could I ever forget that? How could I not fall in love with you that very second?_

His brain goes curiously blank, as if short-circuiting while processing an impossible bit of information, and then a moment later—

_Oh…_

_ …I’m in love with you._

Aziraphale hums a small noise of contentment, his face serene and relaxed and maybe a bit impish, like he knows something, fingers tightening an infinitesimal amount— and Crowley relaxes too, feeling the warmth of the angel holding him seeping into his bones, creeping into his chest.

_That’s what this is. That’s what this has always been. Why did it take me so long to put a name on it?_

He stares up at the angel owlishly, the desert breeze lifting the messy white curls. _I am so fucked_.

_ “_Almost there,” Aziraphale says, walking along the loose sand as if it isn’t an amorphous shifting landscape, as if Crowley is the lightest burden he has ever carried. “You doing ok?”

Crowley looks up at him, studies the upturned nose and the tiny stubborn mouth, feels the cradle of the angel’s hands on the outside of his knee, his chest, through the gossamer fabric of his desert clothes.

“I’m doing just fine,” he says, and means it.

* * *

“_Fuck_, angel.”

This isn’t exactly the scenario he had in mind to be saying those words, in that order, Crowley thinks, but they are applicable all the same.

“Are you _trying_ to hurt me?” Crowley looks down between his spread legs to see Aziraphale with his glasses on, bare wrists covered obscenely in his own blood.

“I am _trying_ to get the bullet out of your hip. You are very lucky this hit muscle and not bone.”

Aziraphale’s white jacket is pillowed under Crowley’s head and he is gripping the edges of it like a life-raft.

“Do you always wear the field surgeon garb or did you just assume that I was hurt before you popped over?” He asks, trying desperately to think of something other than whatever is happening to his body.

“_I_ am a medic and have been for the entire extent of this seemingly never-ending war.”

“So that’s a yes then— ahh,” he stifles his cry on his hand, biting into the fleshy part at the base of his thumb.

“You do seem to find trouble often enough.”

“Need I remind you that I saved you from a guillotine once,” Crowley says, chest heaving.

Aziraphale just purses his lips, nonplussed.

“I didn’t even think that stupid bag held any actual medical equipment. I figured you just stashed books in it,” Crowley continues, slinging an arm over his face.

Aziraphale looks up for a moment, his glasses slipping down his nose. “What kind of medic do you take me for?”

“An _angelic_ one. You know, one that would just use his _angelic _powers.”

“Oh, I do. _Usually_,” Aziraphale says, looking down again, “but I like to carry them around with me regardless. Helps me blend in— Oh, I think I almost have it.”

“This is punishment. You are _punishing _me,” he grinds out, squeezing his eyes up tight. It isn’t that Aziraphale is a _bad_ last minute field surgeon, in fact the angel has a deft touch and steady hands, more steady than most of the other medics Crowley has seen butchering in the battlefields. But it always seems that when Crowley has done something to get himself hurt, Aziraphale would somehow manage to lose any shred of his angelic empathy.

“If you continue to find yourself in these scenarios, and then _call on me_ to dig bullets out of you, then you shouldn’t cast aspersions on my methods,” the angel has the gall to look prim, as if he isn’t sitting between Crowley’s spread legs and covered in his blood.

“I didn’t call on you you just _showed up_.” He squeezes his eyes shut, wriggling under the intense localized pain. “Speaking of which, _why _did you come find me?”

“I…” If Aziraphale is a little bit rougher than usual under the questioning Crowley isn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know, “I got concerned,” he finishes.

Crowley glances down, sees Aziraphale bent over at his waist, his halo providing the necessary light. His loose dark clothes are pulled down by the corner to reveal a sharp triangle of white skin and shockingly red blood.

_Fuck. Satan help me._

_ “_Angel. I’m—“

His head is swimming. It is all too much. He feels like he is floating above his own body, watching himself. _Is this fainting? Am I going to actually _faint_?_

“Got it.”

Aziraphale is holding his field kit tweezers up into the light of his halo, the dented slug of a bullet between them.

“Thank _fuck,_” he covers his face with his hands, breathing heavily through them. There’s the splash of antiseptic over the wound and he barely flinches at the sting of it, grateful that it’s over.

“You did very well,” Aziraphale says, turning around to grab something. The compliment does something strange to Crowley’s body, the frayed nerves suddenly on edge.

“I did?” He asks, lifting his head to look down. The angel is wiping away the blood with a deft hand, humming.

“You did. _Very_ well.”

His nerves sing under the praise.

_Well, that’s interesting._

_ “_We usually knock the humans unconscious for this kind of thing,” Aziraphale says, his hands still moving.

_ “_You know, you could just…” Crowley waves his hand, “miracle the blood away.”

Aziraphale looks up, a faint blush watercoloring his cheeks.

“Well yes but, you know, frivolous miracles and all.”

And then he lifts the edges of Crowley’s trousers and swipes underneath.

_Sweet fucking Satan help me. _Crowley digs his heels into the sand, trying to stymie the migration of blood through his body. _Do you want to scare him off? I don’t even know if he makes an effort in the body department. He probably thinks that having a dick just gets in the way of his reading or whatever the hell he does with his spare time._

_ “_Angel you don’t have to—“ Crowley begins sitting up, ready to push Aziraphale out from between his legs.

“Oh stop it, Crowley. As if I haven’t done this with a thousand other men—“

Crowley pauses, his heart feels like it’s turned upside down.

Aziraphale looks up and sees Crowley’s face, pieces together his last statement.

“Oh… wait, no,” he starts, fingers light on his exposed skin.

Crowley clears his throat, trying desperately to seem nonchalant, “no need to explain, angel.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—“

_ “_It’s not a big deal,” he interrupts, “I know how you meant it.”

“I’ve been doing the medic thing for a long time. You see a lot of human bodies.”

“Of course,” He says, _but not mine._ He swallows, “I’ll finish it.”

He snaps his fingers, willing himself clean and— nothing happens.

Aziraphale is looking between the remaining stain of swiftly drying blood and Crowley’s fingers hovering in the air.

“Crowley… Are you ok?”

Crowley huffs out a huge breath of air, laying back onto the sand again.

“This has been happening since I got shot. That’s why I was just lying in the desert when you found me. I think the pain is distracting me.”

Aziraphale is looking at him softly, “Oh. Oh, of course. You know sometimes when I am very hungry I have a hard time doing miracles too.”

Crowley tilts his neck up to look at him. Aziraphale is still sitting between his legs, feet tucked underneath of him, hands busy cleaning his body.

It’s almost too much to bear. Aziraphale is gentle now, washing him like he’s something precious to behold, something to protect. Crowley’s heart is a wild beating thing in his chest, throwing itself against his rib cage.

He is padding the open wound on his hip with squares of gauze, his fingers so light that Crowley can barely feel them. The whole area is beginning to feel a bit numb, the antiseptic burning away the last few responsive nerve endings, the desert air chilling the exposed skin.

“Why are you mummifying me?” Crowley asks, glancing down to see the angel doing a very professional job of wrapping up his lower half.

“I don’t want this shifting and you getting sand in the wound. Trust me you will _not_ like getting sand in the wound.” He pulls his clothing down another few inches, wrapping the dressings studiously around his waist to anchor them.

_I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I have you between my legs and your hands all over me and it’s because I got fucking shot_ _and not because—_

Crowley looks down again and nearly faints again. The very brilliant orange of his hair there is visible, so much brighter than the hair on his head, and so is _most_ of his cock.

Aziraphale looks up at him, seemingly unaware that anything is amiss, “Oh, Crowley you look so pale. You should really rest.”

Crowley stares back at him, his mouth dry.

“Rest. Right.”

He can feel the heavy warmth of arousal sitting low in his belly, can feel the blood pumping through his veins. He swallows, caught between wanting nothing to happen and _everything_.

“Do you always… um,” Aziraphale begins delicately, fingers fastening the dressings, “make the effort? You know?”

Crowley swears he can feel his soul leave his body. He covers his face with his arms, willing himself to disappear into the sand beneath him.

“You did not just ask me that.”

He can feel Aziraphale looking at him.

“Is that a yes?”

Crowley tenses his jaw, grinds his teeth together.

“It’s a yes.”

“Oh. I always wondered—“ Aziraphale stops himself abruptly.

_You always wondered? About me? And what I keep in my pants? I must have lost too much blood. I must be in hallucinating. _Crowley slowly slides an arm down until he can see the angel putting things back into his bag, face slyly turned away. He can’t see much from this angle but the angel’s ear appears to be _very _red.

“You always wondered…?” Crowley probes, smirking despite himself.

“Well, you know. You were always flipping genders and whatnot so I didn’t know if you kept things a certain way or had nothing at all or…” Aziraphale trails off, his halo dimming into nothing, but Crowley can see the blush coloring his cheeks. _So you _do_ think about me naked._

“It was bloody difficult being female. The harassment was…” he shakes his head, “terrible. Even if it did make the temptations easier. Though I’m sure I’ll try it on again in the future.”

He shrugs as much as he can laying down, “and it doesn’t feel right to not have the complete…” he gestures vaguely, “equipment,” he settles on. He can feel a flush rising to his cheeks.

“Do you?” _Play with it?_ “Always make the uh, effort?” Crowley asks. 

Aziraphale clears his throat, “um, yes. I do. Always have, really. Figured it would be best to try and fit in with the humans.”

_Oh, fuck._

“Yeah,” he says, feigning nonchalance, “I do remember there being a lot more nudity before the 12th century. The humans have gone a bit backwards with their morals if you ask me.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Aziraphale rolls his eyes a bit, sitting back until his legs are straightened out in front of him, next to Crowley’s. “You demonic thing.” The angel meets his eyes, smiles.

_I’m so fucking done for._

Aziraphale glances down at his lap and reaches forward. Crowley’s breath catches in his throat— _what are you—_ and watches as he puts his hand on Crowley’s lowered trousers and tugs them back into place.

He can feel himself getting hard, he’s frankly surprised he isn’t already, for all it usually takes is one of those lingering looks the angel gives him.

“How does it feel?” The angel asks, nodding at his bandages.

“It’s ok. Better,” he looks up at Aziraphale, “thank you.” He gives him a lopsided smile.

“Always,” is the easy reply.

Crowley sits up and inches himself back until he is propped up against a tree, shifting and putting Aziraphale’s jacket furtively over his lap.

“But next time, please, _please, _Crowley—“ Aziraphale starts, staring down at his hands in his lap, “_try_ to be more careful.” There is something sharp and vulnerable in the edge of his voice.

“I was fine. I _would’ve_ been fine. I just… I thought I saw you in the fray and I got distracted and that’s when I got shot.”

“You thought you saw me?” Aziraphale looks up at him, confused.

“Yeah. It’s… It was this British officer. He’s become something of a legend around here.”

“And you thought he was me?”

“He wears all white,” Crowley starts, as if in justification, “and has blond hair and blue eyes and yes ok from a distance you see this man in all white with blond hair and it _kind of_ looked like you.” Crowley swallows and hesitates, then takes off his glasses, “I think I was hoping to see you.”

The palm trees rustle in the cool desert night, moonlight filtering down onto them. He feels stiffly vulnerable— but not weakened by it, _strengthened_. Crowley can see Aziraphale in perfect color, even in this dark oasis, can see the way he is staring into the middle ground between them, can see how his pulse is hammering away in the cradle of his throat. The angel looks so small and startled by his words that he bites the inside of his cheek, steeling himself.

“I’ve missed you.”

Aziraphale looks up at him, the neat mouth parted just slightly in shock.

“Crowley,” he breathes, “you can’t.”

“No, I promise you I can. In fact, I miss you all the time.”

Aziraphale is frozen in place, his eyes finding Crowley’s even in the dark.

“Please,” the angel whispers, closing his eyes, “someone might hear you.”

Crowley shuts his mouth, looking down into the space between them. He digs blunt fingernails into his palm until he is sure that they are bleeding. _This isn’t fair. Is this it? Is this my curse? Is this the real weight of my suffering? Just a perpetually filling cup never reaching the brim?_

_ “_This is _killing _me, angel.”

He closes his eyes, and it is silent for a long moment before he feels Aziraphale moving in the darkness. And then suddenly there is a soft warmth at his side, the press of a supple hip into his own.

“I’m sorry,” comes the tiny whisper, somewhere near his shoulder.

Crowley turns into the warmth, his head dipping down until he can feel the tousled curls of Aziraphale’s hair against him, until their foreheads are pressed together.

“I am frightened,” he whispers, and Crowley is stunned, flattened by the confession so much that he brings his hand up and finds Aziraphale’s in the darkness.

“I’ll protect you. No matter what. Haven’t I always?” he whispers back. _Always, always, always. I won’t let anything happen to you. Just tell me you feel this too. Tell me this is real._

He can feel Aziraphale’s breath puffing hot air against his chin.

“I’m not afraid of what will happen to me, if they find out about… this,” Aziraphale says, leaning back to stare up into what Crowley assumes is just the dark outline of his face. “It’s what will happen _to you_.”

_“_Stupid angel, worrying about me. I’m already fallen. I’m already unforgivable—“ 

“Not to me you aren’t.”

Crowley pulls back, Aziraphale’s voice is like a razor, sharp and dangerous. He thinks again of his immense strength, of the way this soft cotton-ball being lifted him like he was built of air.

“I assure you _I am_.”

If Aziraphale’s voice is a razor, Crowley’s is broken glass.

_Don’t do this. I accept where I am. I don’t need you thinking that I’m something I’m not. That I will ever join you in heaven again. Those gates are closed for me. Earth is the only place we will ever have._

He can feel Aziraphale’s breath against his arm, a bit of warmth in the quickly chilling night.

“What is it like?”

The air whistles through the grains of sand, brings them the scent of horsehair and dust and blood.

“What is what like?”

“To not be afraid.”

The question floats between them, hangs in the dry desert air and Crowley looks out to the purple steel-knife edge of horizon through the trees, ablaze with the glow of distant bonfires.

“Why do you think that I’m not afraid?”

_ I live in fear. I’m made of it. I put on a coat of it every morning._

“You mustn’t fear Hell. For all that they love you down there.”

_ How can I fear Hell when they built me? Dipped me in black by my ankles until nothing white remained. How am I supposed to tell you that the thing I fear isn’t a place, isn’t a thing— it’s an absence, it’s a disappearing act, it’s a _loss_. I want to put you inside a lock-box and keep you there, magic yourself off to a place only I can go._

“You don’t fear God.”

“Angel—“

_ Don’t start asking these questions._

“It’s hard to be afraid of God when She doesn’t talk back.”

Aziraphale is still for a moment, a stretch of time that seems to lengthen under the shimmering stretch of moon-rise.

“You… talk to God?”

_ Don’t sound so surprised She made me too, you know._

“I wouldn’t call it talking, actually.”

“What do you talk about?”

_ You. Always you. I’ve been holding a knife to Her throat over you for a millennia and I am starting to think that it works. Let me see those wings. I haven’t stained them yet._

“I mostly yell at Her. For all Her transgressions.”

Aziraphale turns and pins him with a frightened gaze, blue eyes blown wide.

“Crowley,” he whispers, “You _don’t._”

“I do.”

_ I do. I do all the time. I’ll do it right now._

“She murders kids. She’s killed people for no good reason. Natural disasters every damn day. Mudslides and floods and _famines_—“ Crowley remembers the fourteenth century again— “_This_ bloody mess,” he waves a hand out to the stretch of desert and his own blood-soaked clothes. “She turned an entire city into… into _nothing_. Salt. There were innocent people in there.”

“Sodom and Gomorrah?”

“Yes.”

There is a cool desert breeze walking through the dunes, the trees whispering overhead.

“That was a long time ago,” Aziraphale says gently. Crowley makes a small noise in his throat, looking out into the darkness.

“You should get some rest. Are you still sleeping very much?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley is grateful for the change in conversation.

“It’s my favorite hobby after drinking and talking to you.”

It is so much easier to talk to Aziraphale in the dark, Crowley muses— he can see the angel in perfect detail, if a bit gray on the color scale, and he knows that Aziraphale is mostly blind except for the bit of moonlight filtering through the trees.

Aziraphale opens and closes his mouth a number of times, thoughts clearly aborting themselves on the tip of his tongue.

“Would, um, you like to sleep then?” Aziraphale asks, his voice unsteady, clearly ignoring Crowley’s last comment, “I brought some books… I can set up behind another tree and let you rest.”

“I _knew_ you stashed books in that bag—“

Aziraphale rolls his eyes up to look at the canopy of trees above them, long-suffering.

“Keep my jacket, won’t you? Use it as a pillow.”

Crowley wiggles his way down until he is flat on the sand, hugging Aziraphale’s jacket tight to his chest.

“Thank you,” he says, quiet, “for everything.”

Aziraphale is already moving across the grove, to an adjacent tree. There’s the outline of a perfect circle around his head, emitting the faintest of lights.

“Get some rest, dear.”

Crowley lets his head fall back onto the sand, and through the trees can see a tiny bit of the winking outline of Ophiochus.

_Maybe someone will bear me after all, _he thinks, and closes his eyes.

* * *

It is impossible to sleep. He gave it the old college try— counting backwards from one-hundred, meditating, tallying fluffy-white Aziraphales. But nothing seems to work. His hip is a dull throbbing ache in his side, his trousers sticky and slightly wet with dried blood. It is also getting increasingly more cold as the moon tills higher in the sky.

Aziraphale is still sitting up by the other tree, facing away, utterly absorbed in the book he is reading. Crowley can see the outline of the angel’s soft shoulders, the tree’s trunk between them. His halo is flickering the soft light of a white candle in an arc around him.

The corners of Crowley’s lip edge up in a smile, watching the angel. He can see Aziraphale’s small feet burrowing around in the sand, barefoot, having kicked off his shoes sometime in the night, absentminded.

There is the quiet sound of Aziraphale turning a page.

_Those fingers were all over me not even two hours ago. I had you sitting between my legs. You were pulling off my pants. I should thank that bullet, put flowers on the grave of the guy who shot me._

His trousers are beginning to feel the slightest bit tight, the fabric shifting as blood flows between his legs. There is the heavy weight of arousal blossoming out from his stomach, between his hipbones, warm and dense.

_ Fuck. Not now._

Crowley shifts, rearranging the heat of himself until he is pressed into his belly.

_This is a really, really bad time for this._

Aziraphale is oblivious, seemingly carved out of stone, motionless save for the slow turning of a page every few minutes.

_Maybe I could just—_

He slides a hand down his side, eyes on the angel with his back to him. He swallows.

_It might help me fall asleep. I can be quiet. I know how to be quiet—_

There’s already a wet spot on the thin fabric of his trousers where he is leaking.

_I’ll be really quick. He won’t even notice. It will _definitely_ be quick._

He bites down hard on his lower lip, blood rushing in his ears as he takes himself in his hand, the warmth of it a shock.

_Am I being loud? Why is it suddenly so noisy in my head? I can’t hear anything-- why is this desert so fucking quiet?_

He tries to quell the stilted cadence of his breath, chest stuttering as he strokes himself under his clothes, eyes closing tight. He thinks of Aziraphale and the way the white of his hair looked between his legs, the way he pressed up against him in the dark next to the tree, the way his fingers felt on his lower belly, the way he carried him across the desert.

_So fucking strong, angel_. _I had no idea—_

His mouth drops open and he rocks up his hips, forgetting that he had a dented chunk of lead dug out of them but a few hours ago.

_“Fuck—_“

Crowley freezes as if he’s been shot, again. He can hear his own heartbeat swelling in his ears, eyes plastered to the outline of Aziraphale in front of him.

The angel turns, Crowley can see the silvery silhouette of his profile from behind the tree as he listens over his shoulder.

“Crowley?” He says quietly, “are you ok?”

Crowley doesn’t know whether to stay quiet and pretend to be asleep or to answer back, out his sleeping status. He is frozen, hand still wrapped around the aching length of himself, deliberating.

He takes too long however, and watches, petrified, as Aziraphale closes his book and begins crawling over to him.

“Uh, I’m fine! Everything is fine.” He winces at the tone of his voice.

“Oh. Are you sure? I heard a noise and some rustling… I didn’t know if you were having a nightmare or—“ The halo dims and disappears, but not before Aziraphale follows the line of Crowley’s arm to where it ends— in his trousers.

“Oh. _Oh_. I didn’t. I mean,” the angel is stock-still, rooted a few feet in front of him.

“I just—“ Crowley pulls his hand out of his pants and buries it under the small of his back, as if the fabric stretched across his hipbones isn’t tenting up obscenely. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean— It’s just that—“ Crowley never did quite have the best faculties when it came to language, and being caught with his hands down his trousers didn’t exactly assist him in finding the right words. He licks his lips, drowning in embarrassment. “I couldn’t sleep and… and sometimes that helps.”

Aziraphale blinks, mouth parted, eyes following the outline of his body on the sand.

“You couldn’t sleep?” He repeats, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

Crowley shifts, burying his feet in the sand.

“No.”

“And this… helps?” Aziraphale makes a waving gesturing in the air between them.

“Yeah,” he says, “it does,” the air suddenly feeling thick.

“Well then… you should probably keep going.”

Something in Crowley’s brain snaps.

_You mean, you want me to… You are ok with me just…? And what, are you gonna _watch_?_

_ “_Are you sure?” He asks, even as he is sliding his hand out from underneath of himself, guiding it back to the wet heat between his legs.

Aziraphale is watching him, studying the movements of his hand.

“Yes,” the angel licks his lips, “if it will help you relax.”

“Okay,” Crowley breathes, eyes glued to the angel in front of him, watching for any movement, any slight indication of disgust or revulsion. He reaches underneath the waistband of his pants, keeping them pulled up, and slowly begins to stroke.

_Hellfire, angel this can’t be happening._

Aziraphale is fixated in front of him, legs folded underneath himself, hands clasped in his lap. He can see the blue grey of his eyes in the dark, watching his movements.

_Definitely not gonna take long_.

He is too wound up— too close already. To have the object of desire sitting not five feet away, watching him touch himself— Crowley pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down, pleasure licking up his spine.

And then he pushes his hips up into his hand— and has to strangle back the gasp of pain.

“Ow, _shit_.”

He makes a frustrated noise in his throat, squirming on his back, panting hard. He tries to find his rhythm again, wriggling his hips in the sand—

“Stop, _stop_, you are going to start bleeding everywhere again.”

Crowley is gulping down huge swallows of air, hard and leaking against his belly.

“Just— let me,” Aziraphale says quietly, suddenly between his legs.

“Wait, _what_?”

_I’m dreaming. I think I finally caught one of those infections Aziraphale is always talking about and this is a fucking fever dream._

“Lie back,” the angel puts a hand on his chest, pressing him into the sand. “And don’t move. Can you do that? Not move?”

Crowley nods up at him, mute.

“Good.”

Aziraphale’s hand presses into him ever so slightly harder, over the breastbone, as if feeling for his heartbeat, and then slides down his chest, over his navel, onto the hard length of his cock under his clothes.

“Oh. Angel. _Fuck_.”

The hand over him squeezes, as if trying something out, and Crowley can’t help the sound that comes out of his throat.

_How many centuries have I been burning for you and here we are in a desert a million miles from any place we have ever called home and you are finally _touching_ me like I touch myself when I think about you—_

Aziraphale is staring down at him with a quiet stillness, as if seeing him for the first time. And then he is reaching up, pulling at the waistband of Crowley’s trousers until they are down somewhere above his knees.

“So beautiful,” the angel murmurs, as if to himself, so quiet that Crowley can barely hear it. “It’s so… _bright_.”  
Crowley looks down at himself and can see Aziraphale running tentative fingers along the brilliant red of his hair.

“Angel,” Crowley says, whether in pleading or in embarrassment he does not know. All he knows is that the angel is between his legs for the _second_ time tonight, he is achingly hard, and doesn’t have enough cogent thoughts to string together the sentence to ask for what he so desperately wants.

“Of course,” Aziraphale says. “Sorry.” And then rational thought leaves Crowley’s brain.

The angel’s hands are soft and warm, smaller than his own, plusher. Crowley stares down at him, memorizing the delicate wrist, the smooth fingernails, the opposite hand resting on the crease of his thigh.

“Don’t stop, please don’t stop,” he pants out a frenetic rhythm of breaths, can’t help but close his eyes, screwing them up tight. His hips are aching to move, to thrust up into the velvet heat of Aziraphale’s palm, shifting minutely as he seeks more friction, more heat, more angel—

_ “_I said, _don’t move_.”

Crowley snaps his eyes open.

“I’m sorry. I won’t move. Please don’t stop, please don’t—“

“Shh, it’s okay,” Aziraphale murmurs back, pressing the flat plane of his forearm over his good hip, “I’ll hold you.”

_Oh. Fuck. Yes._

_ “That_,” he gasps out, “yes. More of that—“

He can not move even if he wants too— the iron bar of Aziraphale’s arm is a solid immoveable mass, a dart pinning him to the earth. He presses up into the heat of the arm on his hip, testing, the transcendental strength strong enough to crush bones.

“I don’t want you to hurt anymore,” Aziraphale is saying, quiet between his thighs, “I can’t stand it.”

“Angel, angel,” Crowley is panting as the angel moves his hand, faster now, finding his rhythm, squeezing on the upstroke.

“You have to stay safe for me, Crowley, _please_. You can’t keep hurting yourself.”

“Yes, yes, angel.”

“Promise me.”

“Yes, I promise, _don’t stop_.”

The hand on him tightens, speeds up, lust unfolding from his lap like a flower, until he is split open in this tiny desert grove, naked to the stars above and the angel in front of him. He reaches down and grasps Aziraphale’s arm on his hip, the other grabbing at the sand beneath him, needing something to hold on to, to anchor himself, feeling like he is going to shatter into a million pieces, explode into stardust.

“Angel, I’m so close. I’m so close. I’m gonna—“

He is distilled down into the point of contact between them— just heat and hardness, giving and taking, a pleasure that is so overdue it that it burns.

“That’s good. That’s okay. You’re doing so good. I’ve got you.”

A million nerve endings light themselves on fire at the even timbre voice, at his quiet praise. He closes his eyes, curling in on himself as pleasure explodes upwards out from the cradle of his thighs, held fast to the earth, Aziraphale connecting nerve endings he didn’t realize he had. He is distantly aware of Aziraphale’s hand moving him through it, not stopping, of the spill of heat on his stomach, up onto his chest.

He opens his eyes, feeling like he’s been kicked in the chest.

“Aziraphale,” he breathes, his eyes not quite focusing, “_thank you_.”

The warmth of his hand disappears, and then there is the corner of Aziraphale’s jacket wiping up the mess on his stomach, on his chest. Crowley swallows, can feel that his throat is sore— _was I making noise?_ And then he is being tucked back into his pants by a careful hand, his shirt tugged down over his exposed belly.

“I—“

There is a sudden pricking behind his eyes, his throat closing up tight, an invisible dam lifting.

“Crowley?”

Aziraphale is pale and soft and lovely dressed in moonlight and some wild animal in Crowley’s heart that he didn’t realize he’d been suppressing suddenly breaks loose.

“Are you… are you crying?”

There is a thumb on his cheek, fingers warm on his jaw, wiping away the wetness on there.

“Thank you,” Crowley just says again, pressing his face into the angel’s hand, “thank you.”

Aziraphale looks at him for a long while, hand still cradling his face, and then finally settles down next to him until they are flush on the sand, shoulder to shoulder, staring up into the great tapestry of stars above them. Crowley reaches down and brushes his knuckles against Aziraphale’s, not feeling very tired at all.

There is something to be said, Crowley thinks, a little unhinged, about not ever knowing what you were missing.


	2. Do What Thou Wilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no intention of making a second chapter to this. But alas, I am sick with a terrible cold, 1917 was a wacky year, and this idea would not leave me. So, tiny little fic it is then!
> 
> Also as a nerd of the occult, I highly recommend other occult nerds read Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board for a good time.

Al Wajh, 1917

_Was I dreaming?_

Aziraphale is walking beside him, along a stretch of white coastline. The heady animal scent of the sea brushes up into their faces with each lap of water on shoreline, all salt and bitterness.

_Do you regret it? Do you regret me? How am I supposed to talk to you again?_

Crowley thinks of letter-writing, of telegraphs, of messages in bottles.

_I’ll give you an alphabet of letters that don’t exist, we can make our own words. I’ll let you write the dictionary of us. Define what you want me to be._

The angel had been quiet for much of the morning, reflective, only getting fussy when he realized that Crowley had no intention of eating breakfast. So when Aziraphale had demanded brunch, Crowley set them on a walk over the dunes to the city of Al Wejh, along the coast of the Red Sea.

_I could go slow for you_.

He digs around in his brain for something to say, something to bridge the silence between them.

“I owe you,” he says, kicking a rock out into the surf.

Aziraphale looks at him curiously.

“For everything,” Crowley waves an inarticulate hand, “yesterday.” Blood colors his face.

“You would’ve done the same for me,” the angel says, and Crowley nearly trips on a stone.

“I mean— yes. Of course.” _Are we talking about the same thing?_

Aziraphale is looking out across the endless stretch of sapphire water, his eyes catching the color and casting it back, perfect blue. Crowley smiles, the lump still stuck in his throat from the night prior, even after multiple hot cups of Turkish coffee, black and bitter.

“Angel—“ Crowley stops himself, desirous of everything and nothing, filled with the curiosity to poke at a bruise, knowing it will hurt.

“Yes?” Aziraphale turns to look at him and somehow those ageless eyes manage to pin him with the same limitless strength as last night.

Crowley’s throat tightens until he feels short of breath, like a caged animal. His bones ache to shift away from this form and into his serpent one, to slither away into the Red Sea and be forgotten, disappear.

“About last night. I don’t want things to be… different. Between us. Because of that.”

Aziraphale just breathes, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

“They won’t be. I was just… administering pain relief. It’s all very by-the-books for a medic.”

Crowley’s eyes dart between the angel’s, searching for something, an answer maybe, to the endless riddles that Aziraphale weaves his language with.

“Pain relief,” he repeats. _Was it nothing to you?_

“More economical than morphine syrettes.”

Crowley blinks, “you mean you could’ve given me morphine?”

“I didn’t think you really needed it.”

“At what point while you were literally digging a bullet out of me did you think I _wouldn’t_ like morphine?”

Aziraphale lifts a shoulder and glances around, noncommittal.

“I didn’t think it would work on you. If my healing energy burns you what would an opioid do?”

“Angel… What kind of absurdist logic is that? This body is _rather_ human. Alcohol works on me. Smoking works on me. I have blood and tears and—“

Aziraphale is blinking at him serenely, “semen?”

“Christ, Aziraphale.”

Crowley covers his face with his hands.

“Well you do.”

“More to my point then!”

“…Crowley?”

“—My working theory is that you _like_ watching me squirm—“

“Crowley.”

“—I think it’s some latent angelic trait that is popping up—“

“_Crowley_.”

“—Like an instinct you can’t bu—“

Aziraphale’s hands are suddenly on Crowley’s sleeve, gripping tightly.

“Angel?”

Crowley grabs at the hand on his wrist, watching, mystified, as it begins to turn translucent.

“What the _fuck_. Aziraphale what is happening to you?”

“I don’t know.”

His voice sounds small and tinny, as if being played through a faraway radio.

“I quite don’t think I’m next to you anymore,” the angel says, further away. The undulating cerulean of the Red Sea is shining through the suggestion of Aziraphale’s face, nearly gone.

“What? Where are you? Wait, stop. Angel _no_.”

The grip on his sleeve weakens, the weight of it gone.

_ Oh fuck. Oh god. This is it. They’ve come for you._

“Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you,” Crowley pleads, desperate, hands palming the air trying to find the angel’s edges, veiled panic raising the hair on the back of his neck, “wherever you are I’ll come for you—“

“It’s dark in here.”

He can hear Aziraphale’s voice as if it’s in his own head, barely audible. Crowley narrows his eyes. _Dark? Not heaven, then. That can’t be heaven. _

“There are candles lit.”

“Yes, but _angel _focus _where are you_?”

Aziraphale’s body is gone, his voice a small whispering thing.

“I don’t know. They’re quoting the Book of Enoch. A… Arizliket? Oh, I think they are confu—“

“Angel? _Angel?”_

But there was no sound save for the slapping of waves on coastline, the rustling of wide winds across sand.

_Arizlikit… The Book of Enoch._

The name summons up a vision of ancient temples, Egyptian pyramids, golden sigils. Darkness and candles. An ancient language. The puzzle box in his head clicks into place.

_You’ve _got_ to be kidding me_.

* * *

Aziraphale isn’t quite sure where he is. It is very warm in this place, a bit damp, and has an odd smell— something fecal and animalistic and also like something was slightly on fire.

“Hello?” He asks, to the encompassing darkness. His fingers tingle strangely, as if they’ve fallen asleep. The black is so dense that he cannot see his own hands. There may have been a floor, but if there is he can not see it.

“Oh Great Arizlikit,” a voice beckons from the shadows, everywhere and nowhere, “I summon you Sorcerer of Light and Darkness. Wielder of knowledge. Out of the Great Emptiness and into me. Guide thine hand unto mine.”

A softened triangular object appears out of the darkness like a spectre, hovering in front of him.

“Oh. Well, I suppose I could,” Aziraphale says, to the Great Emptiness. “Although you should know I am not—“

“Tell me thine secrets.”

“I don’t have any secrets,” Aziraphale responds, indignant, and thinks immediately of Crowley. 

“Move the planchette through me. Whisper thine will unto the board.”

An entire alphabet arises out of the darkness, the words _Yes _and _No_ and _Goodbye_ winking in and out of focus.

“My _will?_”

He grabs the hovering triangular object, feeling the odd, not-quite fully realized weight of it, as if it is merely a suggestion in his hand, a place-holder for a real thing.

“My _will_ is that I wish to be returned to where I was.”

“Show me the secrets of the sun,” the voice says instead.

Aziraphale narrows his eyes, “the sun? The sun has no secrets. It’s just a fiery ball in space.” It is silent for such a long while that Aziraphale is beginning to think that the voice in the room can’t hear him. The letters twinkle, iridescent, hovering in the air.

“Show me,” comes the booming voice.

“Oh fine,” he huffs, “is this what you want?,” taking the planchette in his hand, “t h es u n,” he spells out, “h a sn os e c r e t s.”

“Do not play games, Ancient One.”

“I’m not playing games,” he says, still holding the planchette. “N og a m e s.” He spells out. “Where am I? You can’t just take me. I was having a very important conversation with someone.” There is no response.

“Hello? Can you hear me? It is _very_ smelly in here.” Aziraphale sighs, “I’ve about had enough of this,” he says, reaching up and snap—

\--ping his fingers. The world seemed to sizzle a bit at its edges, the sand at the periphery of his vision fading to black for the briefest moment, and then… nothing.

“Fuck,” Crowley whispers, closing his eyes.

_Come on. Think of where he is. Think of what it feels like to be summoned. What did he say? It’s dark. There’s candles lit._ Crowley rubs his fingers into his temple,_ of course there are candles lit angel haven’t you ever been to a seance? _

Since the invention of the talking board Crowley’s life had become a bit more interesting over the years. For a time it was all in good fun to show up to a group of middle-aged mystics trying out what they thought was just a party-trick and wreak havoc on an otherwise boring night. But then sometime around the turn of the century some occultists got a hold of it and put it to use in much less enjoyable ways.

_The goddamned OTO. What a dumbshit name. And those dumbshit outfits and the dumbshit triangle hat. Fuck._

“Okay, focus.”

Crowley sits down along the edge of the Red Sea, closing his eyes. He imagines Aziraphale as he looked here sea-side: wind-swept and salty at his edges, dusted with pale freckles across his forearms, a tiny bit of Crowley’s dried blood still under one of his usually meticulously groomed fingernails.

He can feel the warm hum of the angel’s aura, a steady vibrational heat. _I’ll come to you._

Crowley breathes steady breaths, focusing, ignoring the sun on his face and the rocks under his skin and the still dull pain at his hip.

He lifts his hand, concentrating on the warm buzzing that is Aziraphale in his subconscious, giving into the gravitational pull the angel enacts on him, and snaps—

—the planchette down on the word _No_.

“The Enochian Angels will answer me.”

“The… the _what?” _Aziraphale asks, “honestly I think you are confusing me with someone else. _I_ am the Principality Aziraphale.”

There is no response from The Great Emptiness.

“I was the guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden!” He says, resentful, tapping his foot. “Hello? Can you even hear me?”

He can hear the clinking of objects, perhaps a person breathing. But he is otherwise blind in this strange black space, hovering somewhere between worlds.

Aziraphale can hear an unknown language being chanted, low under breath, a candle being lit. And then in an instant there is a strange electrical current that seems to arc through the blackness, a familiar sort of energy filling the void.

“_Charles Stansfeld Jones.”_

Aziraphale pauses and leans in closer to the floating alphabet, “…_Crowley_?”

“My name is _Frater Achad_,” the booming voice says.

“Crowley, I can hear you! But I can’t see you. It is terribly dark in here.”

“You summoned the wrong angel,” comes Crowley’s low voice through the darkness, but it sounds different, _dangerous. _Aziraphale always supposed that Crowley was terrifying in some regard, being a demon and all, even if he had never experienced it himself. But it was one thing to have an _idea_ of what that terror would be like, and another thing entirely to actually _hear it_.

“Oh, Crowley don’t hurt the man,” Aziraphale says to the empty room.

There is the sudden smell of sulphur, like a match being lit, and then the smell of something burning.

“_Release him_,” Crowley hisses out and Aziraphale can sense that he’s transforming, can feel the strange prickling ozone in the air that accompanies his skin walking, like lightning licking along water. The hairs on the back of Aziraphale’s neck stand on end.

“Be gone, demon. I banish thee,” says the faceless voice.

There is the sound of bones cracking, brimstone firing, a sudden exit of wind like candles being extinguished— and then a man screaming, gasping for air, objects in the room Aziraphale could not see being thrown and broken.

“_Thou shalt not defy me.”_

Crowley’s voice is ancient and unholy— the deep hissing whisper of a crossroad at midnight, of smoke on water, of the devil himself. A chill walks up Aziraphale’s spine, and he feels like he finally understands that human expression: _like someone walking over my grave_. 

“I… I release thee, Arizlikit,” comes the uncertain voice, and the planchette in Aziraphale’s hand moves across the floating word _Goodbye_.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale gasps, “what—“

But the darkness is shifting away from under his feet, the sound of water returning. The black edges into light until he is back on a familiar seashore, the sun just beginning to set.

Aziraphale turns in a slow circle, grasping at his chest, feeling a sudden surge of vertigo.

“What on earth just happened to me?” He says to himself.

There is the fuzzy crackling of static and the familiar half-charred scent of a demon appearing and then Crowley blinks into existence behind him, tiny flames of hellfire licking at his heels.

“Aziraphale,” he says, striding over and taking the angel in his arms, “are you ok?”

Aziraphale is a bit stiff in his arms at the sudden embrace, the unfamiliar tenderness in Crowley’s voice. The demon is sighing into his hair, inhaling deeply, nose nuzzled into the white curls.

Aziraphale can smell the Turkish coffee on him from earlier, the burnt charcoal of his demonic being, the warm heat of something indefinably male. He softens into the arms holding him, rests his cheek on a bony shoulder.

“I’m fine, just… a bit dizzy.”

“You were _summoned_. I didn’t think those jackasses summoned angels.”

Aziraphale pulls back to look at him.

“How did you know his name?”

Crowley drops his arms, as if embarrassed, and then brushes at a bit of nothing on Aziraphale’s sleeve.

“There’s an odd group of occultists. Call themselves the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn… their leader summoned me through a talking board once and now he uses _my name_.”

Aziraphale blinks.

“What do you mean he uses your name?”

Crowley runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

“He asked for my name once, years ago, and I spelled it out on the board and he liked it so much that he calls himself Crowley now. Fucking idiot. The whole lot of them. I won’t even tell you what happened at Algiers.” A flush walks across Crowley’s nose and colors his cheeks.

Aziraphale cocks an eyebrow at him. “And what happened to Mr Achad?”

Crowley shrugs and looks down to inspect his nails, suddenly interested in a bit of crud under his thumb.

“_Crowley,_ what did you do?”

“Nothing! Just scared him a bit. Humans don’t much like it when I transform in front of them.”

Aziraphale rubs a hand across his face, “you _didn’t._ That man won’t be right for weeks.”

“I also may have burnt his draft card.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes and sighs deeply.

“He’s going to get in trouble for draft dodging now.”

“He deserved it! Messing around with occult forces he doesn’t understand and summoning the wrong angel—“

“At least your powers are back?” Aziraphale gives him a wry smile.

“Erm. Yes,” Crowley swallows, suddenly sheepish, “I suppose they are.”

“Just needed the right motivation, I suppose?” The angel has the gall to look smug.

“Something like that,” Crowley mutters, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck.

“Well, I’m to go to Belgium soon. But I don’t suppose you’d like to have some dinner with me? My treat. For the daring rescue.” Aziraphale smiles and holds out his arm.

Crowley stares at the outstretched elbow as if it’s the greatest miracle Aziraphale has ever performed.

“I would love to,” he says finally, linking their arms together, the tips of his ears turning pink.

“Why are you going to Belgium?” He asks, as they walk along the coastline back to the city.

“Another battle,” Aziraphale sighs, looking tired, “some village called Passchendaele.”

“A village?”

“Yes. I’m hoping it’s just a small skirmish this time. Some minor miracles.”

Crowley hums his agreement and tightens his arm on the angel’s, gaze fixed on the glowing city ahead of them, the buildings reflecting the slowly lowering sun.

“Do you have another assignment? Somewhere you have to be?” The angel asks, turning to look at him. Crowley looks down, and can’t help the way his lips twist into a crooked smile.

_Just with you. Always with you._

“No place in particular,” he says instead, _but you can summon me anytime._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charles Stansfeld Jones really did go by the name Frater Achad and he really did get arrested in Vancouver in 1917 for alleged draft-dodging and acting completely and totally insane.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me about WWI or these soft idiots on [Tumblr](https://racketghost.tumblr.com)!
> 
> P.S. go check out JuliaJekyll's insanely good [podfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20697584) of my story Salt and leave her some love!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["What kind of medic do you take me for?"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23042827) by [Nymphalis_antiopa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nymphalis_antiopa/pseuds/Nymphalis_antiopa)


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